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I'm looking for discussion that would consider the possibility that a colonization effort could broadcast directions to indigenous intelligence, a bit like the machine built in Sagan's Contact but getting them to recreate their self-replicating spacecraft, and for that matter recreating themselves. This would be the fastest means of getting around, even across intergalactic space. Is this idea posted anywhere yet. Thanks, Ron Syme 66.242.94.154 ( talk) 20:05, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
It would be good if we put here also the Wolves/Inhibitors created by Alastair Reynolds in the Revelation Space series and the Reapers (aka "Old Machines") of the "Mass Effect" games fame.
Spadurar ( talk) 12:25, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Er... Reaper fans, while i like Mass Effect, i don't see any reference to them being self-replicating. Rather, they seem to act as parasites who, at most, transform anything they capture into a Reaper. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
77.54.235.55 (
talk)
17:17, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
star control II had an alien species that were replicating Von Neumann probes — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.49.6.225 ( talk) 12:32, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
I changed the paragraph concerning Iain M Banks' Excession, the idea of changing a Agressive swarm to a Evangalizing swarm was presented here (to my reading) as a main plot item from the book. Whereas, in the book, it is actually given as a example to illustrate how the Culture plans to deal with Outside Context Problems (although planning for OCP's is probably a oxymoron). The Excession object itself in the story is not Hegemonising (as the story is told, although if it truely mimics/replays the actions of those it encounters it might become Hegemonising if something tries to Hegemonise it). EasyTarget 13:30, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
i thought it was the zetetic elenchs way of dealing with its own members that had been subsumed by an AHS. it is in the passage describing the difference between the elench and the culture; the culture seeks to change other civilisations, whereas the elench seeks to be changed by them.
Link #1 is broken.
re: "The Borg are not von Neumann probes. They apparently don't even reproduce by non-assimilative means, according to later Voyager episodes." (edit comment by Bryan Derksen)
being listed in "see also" does not signify anything more than a similarity of topic... otherwise, please explain how "interstellar travel" is a Von Neumann probe... -
Blueshade 15:32, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've just re-merged Berserker probe back into here. Beowulf's de-merge only reintroduced all the problems I'd originally done the merge to resolve, namely the large amount of redundant material between the two - the "examples in fiction" lists were nearly identical. I brought this up back in February on Talk:Berserker probe. If you still disagree, Beowulf, please explain in more detail here on talk. You didn't say anything in any of the edit summaries. Bryan 01:39, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok - you have some good points. I still think that it still needs to be adjusted however.
As per your comments, yes it's possible to lauch a non-von-Neumann EIS. It's also quite possible to lauch a non-replicating warship, and - as NASA can tell you - it's certainly possible to launch non-replicating probes. Whether something can be accomplished without the use a self-replicating system may be immaterial to the discussion.
As for the self-replicating EIS I would suggest checking out the David Brin's story on the list. It mentions a case of a Von Neumann EIS. The entire text of the story is on the author's website.
I have to admit that the argument for the Astrochicken as a class is a weak one; it should not be on the same level.
I think the problem is that this page is not about the general concept, as you claim. Based on a common peice of terminology - von Neumann probe - we're trying to shoe-horn lots of non-von Neumann probe material in, becuase we don't have anywhere else to hang it. Really - what we have is a conceptual structure something like this.
Von Neumann machines that happen to be starships are the "general concept". Variants on the idea that accomplish a specific tasks gives you probes, Beserkers, and Von Neumann EIS. Specific ideas for probes gives you Astrochicken.
How about a breakdown like the following?
Best I can do pre-"coffee and breakfast" :) - Beowulf314159 14:06, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Argh! Damn wikipedia is addicting! Ok - I've done a rough draft of the reworked layout. It can certainly stand polishing - but the structure is there. I can't spend any more time polishing tonight - I'll peek in on it later. - Beowulf314159 00:32, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I ran across this article, and I've of course heard of gray goo, and I've seen the replicators in SG1 but never heard of Von Neumann. So the first thing to jump out at me was, WHEN DID THIS GUY LIVE, WRITE, whatever?
In the novel "Tides of Light" by Gregory Benford, a giant space-faring organism falls down on a planet and plunders its resources for the sake of reproducing itself. Hugo Dufort 09:51, 22 November 2006 (UTC) Through the whole "Galactic Center" serie, mankind is at war with "machines" that have colonized much of the galaxy; they are berserker-like and actively seek and destroy intelligent biological life. Hugo Dufort 09:56, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Could the Machines of the Matrix be mentioned as an example of these self-replicators, even if they aren't interstellar mahcines? -- Nick Begovich 16:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
The Changling involved a merged probe named NOMAD. It acts as a Berserker Should It be mentioned along with V'Ger and the Whale Probe? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.9.223.94 ( talk) 21:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC).
"Another objection to the prevalence of Von Neumann probes is that civilizations of the type that could potentially create such devices may have inherently short lifetimes, and self-destruct before so advanced a stage is reached, through such events as biological or nuclear warfare, nanoterrorism, resource exhaustion, ecological catastrophe, pandemics due to antibiotic resistance, etcetera."
Did someone just make this up? It makes no sense, why would aliens have to worry about bacteria (a earth-based life-form)? This objection needs some sort of reference. 66.75.250.202 02:11, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
No someone did not make this up, since we have never actually encountered an alien race we can only make basic assumptions about their possible physiology. All of these assumtions are, by necessity, based upon the only life forms we have intimate knowledge of...the ones here on earth. Furthermore, if we assume that life has evolved on other planets it can also be assumed that at least some of them would experience similar ecological difficulties ie. diseases, resource depletion, etc. Also it should be pointed out that since we've never been to another planet capable of supporting humanlike life, we have no way of knowing if bacteria is strictly an "earth-based" life form as you call it. It is perfectly plausible that life similar to, perhaps even nearly indistinguishable from, earth bacteria has evolved on hundreds or even thousands of planets. Once again, we have no extrasolar frame of reference on which to base assumtions about life elsewhere and until we do concepts and ideas will continue to be based upon earthly life. 64.238.49.65 ( talk) 10:11, 31 December 2008 (UTC)mandragor.
The greater point is simply that any civilization of advanced technology is likely to reach the point where it's own technologies and accompanying issues of unforeseen consequences results in extinction before being able to create Von Neumann probes. For instance, Tipler argues somewhere that the cost of constructing Von Neumann probes falls over time. Eventually, one would cost the equivalent of $10 million USD to construct, and eventually a mere $4k. Surely *someone* would build one by that point, no? If anyone studies such things, it's likely demonstrable the cost of building a doomsday device will always be orders of magnitude below that of a Von Neumann probe. It could be argued the USA, as a whole, reached that point in the 1980s, with enough destructive power to end human existance if it's 270 million population sought to. The cost of such means lowers every year, perhaps a population of 10 million could achieve that status by 2020 if willed. Eventually, you reach the cost where a group of 1000 people, 100 people, etc could end all human existance, and given the current state of humanity surely some group somewhere would exercise that option at some point, no? There certainly are *individuals* who would take everyone they could with them in a grand finale. Anyways, personal dooms-day devices being bound to appear much earlier than personal Von Neumann probes - it almost seems self-evident any civilization will suffer self-inflicted doom before being able to colonize space.
And besides - if ETI's have no bacteria -- what exactly did life there evolve from, anyways?
76.104.181.252 ( talk) 06:22, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Someone apparently moved the article to "Self-replicating spacecraft". However, the lead still bolds the article topic as "von Neumann probe". This is an inconsistency that should be resolved. I see no problem in moving the article to "Von Neumann Probe", and if there are no objections/explications, I will move the article there. Robert K S 12:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
The following paragraph is uncited and seems to be original research:
Not only does this seem like an unreferenced assertion, but it also misses the point. If autonomously operating machines are subjected to forces of natural selection, then succesive mutations may cause the emergence of robots that break these rules (e.g. ignore the radio transmitter). I'm tempted to delete this paragraph--what do others think? Alki 19:47, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Could the Titan from Titan A.E. be considered a Replicating "seeder" ships for inclusion in the Examples in fiction section.( IRMacGuyver ( talk) 00:27, 7 December 2007 (UTC))
I found a site which seems to be only half-ready but the content is extremely fascinating: http://vonneumann.tripod.com/index.html The author has very good points about why would somebody build von Neumann probe. What do you think of adding a new section to article with a title "Hypothetical reasons for building von Neumann probe" or "Sociology of von Neumann probes" or something like that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.27.61.61 ( talk) 17:47, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't remember from which book I read that, it was a while ago; But the robots in the foundation serie had sent machines in advance of the human race with orders of therraforming planets for the humans. In doing so, they destroyed a great deal of alien lifeforms. That earned mankind and the rebots the hatered of the remainig aliens (they were only uploaded minds tho at the time). Sorry if what i say is inconsistent I'm drunk right now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.196.171.143 ( talk) 03:08, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
As far as I know the first appearance of von Neumann machines , sent at escape velocity from the Earth, appears in the P.K. Dick short story (1955) Autofac . These are not 'probes' in the sense of exploration, but I don't know of an earlier story of self replicating machines sent out as spacecraft. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autofac aajacksoniv ( talk) 10:05, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
Although biological, (ie. the characters' assertions that it has DNA) I think Lavos from Chrono Trigger could be a good example of a Berserker/terraforming probe. It travels to a planet, significantly affects the development of intelligent species, and monitors/records all species of the life that appears on that planet for millions of years. At the end of its monitoring, it resurfaces, in doing doing so destroying almost all life on the planet, and creates a new life form based on the DNA information it's collected over the years. Finally, it sends out its children to other planets with that information in their DNA as well.
I put it here first because it would be significantly different from the other examples in the article, so I'm not sure it belongs. 64.202.157.11 ( talk) 08:21, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Someone suggested that my 2008 close encounter may have been a "Von Neumann probe"? I don't know, but I find the idea challenging.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AEzX4hw4tI
222.155.234.120 (
talk)
08:16, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Is there a sense of Hegemonising swarm sufficiently separate from Self Replicating spacecraft to justify its own page? Agingjb ( talk) 08:47, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Often new ideas emerge from speculative fiction. There is however a distinction between the work of a fiction writer and that of a scientist, even when the latter is speculating. There needs to be a sharper distinction in this article between such different kinds of speculation. Although the role of fiction as a way of thinking about this topic is quite important, it shouldn't interfere with the presentation of the concept.
I'd suggest that all ideas that have appeared only in fiction and writing about fiction should appear only in the fiction section of this article, leaving the rest of the article to reference primarily non-fictional works, and only mention fiction where this fiction has been incorporated by theoretical discussions. -- TS 13:00, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
Looks like some over-enthusiastic editor has deleted the 'in fiction' section. Stub Mandrel ( talk) 20:15, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
I have restored this section. 'In Fiction' sections are common place in many science and technology related entries in Wikipedia. Fellow Editors, please do not unilaterally delete the 'In Fiction' section again without a discussion first. Stub Mandrel ( talk) 20:25, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
In essence humans are Von Neumann Probes, with the Malthusian capacity to increase exponentially in numbers and gobble up vast amounts of resources (viz. planet earth). In terms of Sagan's response then, surely the response of alien civilizations would be to destroy humans - and by extension any other self-replicating species - in order to prevent to consumption of most of the galaxy? 58.168.119.84 ( talk) 02:25, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
"It has been theorized[3] that a self-replicating starship utilizing relatively conventional theoretical methods of interstellar travel (i.e., no exotic faster-than-light propulsion, and speeds limited to an "average cruising speed" of 0.1c.) could spread throughout a galaxy the size of the Milky Way in as little as half a million years."
While I don't claim to understand the maths, I find this very difficult to accept. The Milky Way has a diameter of approximately 87,400 light years. If a single probe was travelling at an average speed of 0.1c, it would take 874,000 years to traverse the galaxy. Alternately it would take about 437,000 years for any number of probes to travel from the centre of the galaxy to the rim. And, of course, that doesn't take into account the navigational hazard of a supermassive black hole at the galactic core.
So, even assuming that the probes originated from close to the centre of the galaxy, it would take almost "half a million" years to reach the rim, WITHOUT stopping en-route to colonise star systems in order to self replicate, assuming such probes could survive the entire journey. Considering that there are at least 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, and that the operating lifetime of the individual probes would require numerous stops for replication, such an enterprise would require billions of probes to be replicated in order to colonise the galaxy.
All this would take time. The probes could, theoretically, traverse the galaxy in 500,000 years if their operational lifetime was sufficiently large, but I don't see how they could "spread throughout" it. Of course "spread throughout" is a vague term which may not mean the same as "colonise the galaxy", but just how long would it take for a self replicating probe project originating close to the galactic core (or elsewhere) to reach our solar system?
Maybe I'm overthinking it, and its just a typo... even if it takes half a billion years, given the age of the galaxy, there's still plenty of time for it to already have happened. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C6:ED9B:1101:A537:AF43:5410:B06F ( talk) 07:40, 25 October 2023 (UTC)